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The current research investigates how and why consumers' construal levels and the appeals framed either by gains or losses jointly influence persuasion. The findings across four experiments indicate that matching high-level construals with gain frames and low-level construals with loss frames leads to a) higher intentions to engage in cholesterol lowering behavior (experiment 1), b) more favorable brand attitudes (experiment 2), c) greater willingness to donate to an environmental organization (experiment 3), and d) higher buying intentions for a brand (experiment 4). It seems that these outcomes occur because matches between construal level and message frames encourage people to pay attention to the information they evaluate (experiments 1 ˜4), and this enhanced attention induces greater perceptions of processing fluency, which in turn leads to positive attitudes (experiments 2˜4). Further, this research demonstrates that an adequate amount of cognitive resources is required for this matching effect to occur (experiment 4). The current research contributes to the construal level, message framing, and matching literatures by unveiling the specific mechanism underlying the matching relationship between construal level and gain versus loss frames on persuasion and by identifying a boundary condition for it. This research also has managerial implications for marketing managers and policymakers in that it suggests a strategic way to use construal level and message frames to enhance marketing communication and advertising effectiveness.

This dissertation examines the relationship between two social psychological theories: Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954) and Construal Level Theory (Liberman & Trope, 1998). More specifically, this research assesses how a person's level of mental abstraction (i.e., construal level) might influence the way social comparison information from individuals or aggregates is used to form self-evaluations. Typically, comparison information from individuals (versus information about aggregates) is given disproportionate weight when forming self-evaluations; in other words, there is a "local" (i.e., individual) dominance effect in the utilization of social comparison information (e.g., Zell & Alicke, 2010). It is predicted that with greater mental abstraction (i.e., higher construal level), this tendency will be reversed, and instead comparison information from aggregates will be relied upon more when evaluating the self. In other words, abstract mindsets (versus concrete mindsets) should result in a "global" (i.e., aggregate) dominance effect in the weighting of social comparison information. Six studies examine the influence of construal level on the use of aggregate versus individual social comparison information. Two pilot studies provide initial evidence that abstract mindsets lead to a global dominance effect. The generalizability of these effects is tested by providing comparison feedback on different tasks (Study 1 and Study 4), testing the influence of different construal mindset manipulations (Study 2), as well as manipulating the psychological distance (an antecedent of construal level; e.g., Trope and Liberman, 2003) of social comparison targets (Studies 3 - 4). Additionally, the relative weighting of individual versus aggregate comparison targets is directly tested by comparing self-evaluations with only aggregate comparison information, and with both aggregate and individual comparison information (Study 2 and Study 4). Results across all studies indicate that while social comparisons with better off or worse off targets typically result in robust effects, evidence of local dominance and effects of construal manipulations are much more subtle. Theoretical implications for Social Comparison Theory and Construal Level Theory and practical implications are discussed.

The endowment effect occurs when owners assign more value to the products they own than do non-owners to the same products. Research on the endowment effect has identified factors that enhance or mitigate the effect, such as the duration of ownership, as well as information processing differences between sellers and buyers. However, these studies have primarily involved immediate transactions between sellers and buyers. An interesting question emerges as to whether the endowment effect will be observed for temporally distant transactions. The main purpose of the first two studies is to examine how the temporal distance from transactions influences customers' evaluations of products by comparing buyers' willingness to pay and sellers' willingness to accept in the present and future. Despite the fact that consumers often collect information today about product or services that will be consumed in the future, such as window shopping or looking at houses or cars for a future purchase, a limited number of endowment studies have considered the temporal effect on willingness to pay and willingness to accept. More specifically, studies 1, 2, and 3 find that the endowment effect disappears as temporal distance from the transaction increases. Study 2 and 3 demonstrates that when the transaction is expected to occur in the near future, sellers focus on their products, while buyers focus on their money. These different cognitive perspectives affect price gaps between sellers and buyers. Specifically study 2 demonstrates that when events are in the distant future, sellers' and buyers' cognitive perspectives change, and the endowment effect is eliminated. In study 3, the effects of role and time on memory trace and information structure were investigate to investigate the salience differences in transaction. Finally, the underlying psychological and temporal mechanism driving the salience differences investigated in study 4-a and 4-b.

This dissertation comprises three essays that investigate how goal progress influences information processing and subsequent goal pursuit. Essay 1 demonstrates how perceived goal progress influences construal level. I propose that people perceiving low progress will pay more attention to specific means or subacts, which are required to effectively achieve their goals (a lower level of construal), whereas people perceiving high progress will consider the general meaning or value of their goal (a higher level of construal). Based on this relationship between goal progress and construal level, I further predict that fit between goal progress and goal construal (i.e., abstract vs. concrete goal construal) will enhance self-regulation as a result of increasing engagement. Across various domains of self-regulation, I show that fit between goal progress and goal construal increases engagement, which in turn influences subsequent self-regulation. Extending the motivational influence of fit between goal progress and construal level, essay 2 shows how to effectively persuade people to pursue their goals depending on goal progress. Based on the relationship between goal progress and construal level in essay 1, I propose that fit between goal progress and the construal level of message framing leads to greater persuasion than would nonfit. Three studies reveal that as people perceive greater progress, messages framed in an abstract, high construal level are perceived to be more persuasive than messages framed in a concrete, low construal level. Finally, essay 3 demonstrates how goal progress affects subsequent goal pursuit, specifically perceptions of and preferences for means that serve a single (i.e., unifinal means) or multiple goals (i.e., multifinal means). Based on cognitive theories of goals and motivation, I show that greater goal progress leads people to structure goals more inclusively than lesser goal progress. The inclusive structures further increase perceived instrumentality and preferences for multifinal means versus unifinal means. Across three studies, I demonstrate that greater goal progress increases perceived instrumentality of multifinal means relative to unifinal means. I further show that the inclusive representations of goals and means underlie the impact of greater goal progress on the perceived instrumentality of and preferences for multifinal means.

Companies are under increasing pressure from every category of stakeholder, from government and community to supply chain and consumer, to improve the environmental sustainability of their operations, products and services. To be most successful with environmental sustainability improvement initiatives, a company must have the commitment and effort of its employees. The purpose of this research is to study the effect of the company’s approach to the initiative on the level of employee commitment to the company’s environmental sustainability goals. This research was conducted with a two-factor, factorial experiment. The experimental factors were construal level and small wins framing. Each of these factors had two levels, creating a 2x2 design with four treatment level combinations. A third study factor was environmental concern. Four other variables, goal difficulty, perceived organizational efficacy, gender and age, were included in the model as control variables. The dependent variable was goal commitment. Approximately 150 participants were recruited for the experiment and randomly assigned to one of the four fixed, treatment combinations. Hierarchical regression was used to estimate the factors’ main and interaction effects, as well as the significance of the control variables. Neither of the two manipulated variables, construal level and small wins, was found to have a significant main effect on goal commitment. There were, however, significant interactions between environmental concern and construal level, and between environmental concern and small wins framing, on goal commitment. At high levels of environmental concern, the effects of construal level and small wins were as hypothesized, but at low levels of environmental concern, the effects of construal level and small wins were opposite of what was expected. Additionally, both organizational efficacy and gender were found to significantly affect one’s goal commitment.

This dissertation demonstrates how categorization mindsets (introduced by Ulkumen et al., 2010) moderate the altruistic behavior of consumers in decisions that have consequences to others besides oneself. Categorization mindset refers to a way of thinking about options, and is induced by simple sorting or categorization tasks. Ulkumen et al. (2010) has shown that mindsets can be unidimensional (in terms of being focused on a single, salient dimension) or multidimensional (in that both salient and non-salient dimensions are processed). Across three experiments, this dissertation finds that a multidimensional mindset (compared to a unidimensional mindset) enhances the preference for other-oriented options among highly altruistic individuals, but enhances the preference toward self-oriented options among less altruistic individuals. An investigation of the process underlying the results reveals that the interaction between mindset and altruism results from what we describe as the “breadth of processing route.” This route suggests that multi-dimensional mindsets activates a comparative mode since both salient (self-outcome) and non-salient (other-outcome) dimensions are processed simultaneously, while unidimensional mindsets activate a non-comparative mode given that only the salient dimension of self-outcome is processed. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the substantive and managerial implications along with suggestions for future research.

To the vast majority of people, the terms “sustainability” and “sustainable development” are unfamiliar, and, when they are recognized, there is still a great deal of interpretability as to their significance. Since no consensus exists regarding these terms, communication efforts to promote action and awareness among citizens must invariably “frame” the issue of sustainable development in one way or another. By and large, most communication strategies promote small private-sphere actions relevant to patterns of consumption. While these small actions are helpful, participatory, collective, public-sphere activism towards sustainability is much more potent and desirable. In attempting to engage this type of participatory action, communicators must understand the psychological barriers that are likely to confront their efforts. Communication professionals recognize that one such barrier, that of perceived, or, psychological distance, from issues of non-sustainability is especially pernicious. This paper attempts to apply Construal Level Theory (CLT), which provides “an account of how psychological distance influences individuals’ thoughts and behavior” (Trope et al. 2007) to the design of communication strategies for participatory sustainable development. After providing a thorough review of CLT, the authors examine the many ways that the theory can contribute to the design of communication strategies for participatory sustainable development.